After a strong week of campaigning, Hillary Clinton has rocketed ahead to a 12-point lead over Barack Obama in New Hampshire, according to this morning's CNN/WMUR poll.
Hillary gained 7 percentage points since last week's poll, which showed her in a dead heat with Obama. Obama has dropped 4 points in the last week.
According to CNN:
Clinton was virtually tied with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in last week's New Hampshire poll, along with several other recent surveys. But in the Wednesday poll, the New York senator now has a 12-point lead over Obama -- 38 percent to 26 percent.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is in third place with 14 percent, with the remaining Democratic hopefuls in single digits, according to the poll. Clinton gained some 7 percentage points over last week's poll, with Obama losing 4 percentage points.
"Nearly all of Clinton's gains come among older voters. She also is ranked higher than Obama on every issue tested, with health care and the economy her strongest suits," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
Clinton has been strong on the stump all week, while the Obama campaign has engaged in bizarre tactics. Obama's campaign manager and former advisor to John Edwards, David Axelrod, boasted to reporters on camera that Obama quit using cocaine when he was 20 years old. In addition, mainstream media outlets, which have given Obama a free pass so far, have begun vetting him in the way that Presidential front-runners are typically vetted.
In addition, Obama's cheap attempts to smear Hillary with false and misleading direct mail to NH voters has backfired. The Clinton campaign responded strongly this week to Obama's attacks:
Sen. Barack Obama is sending mail in New Hampshire attacking Hillary on health care and falsely claiming that his health care plan covers everyone.
The mailer selectively excerpts a passage from The Washington Post. The full quote actually explains that experts believe 15 million people would not be covered under Sen. Obama’s plan and describes who those people are:
Experts say that without a mandate, many Americans would still not have health insurance, and the picture of who those millions are is an interesting one.
...
So the 15 million people without insurance under Obama's plan would be a combination of relatively well-off people who choose not to purchase health insurance and people who qualify for public programs like Medicaid who don't sign up. It could be a struggle for Clinton to find someone who wants health insurance but doesn't qualify under the Obama plan, because it's not clear such a person exists.
Most health care experts want those 15 million to get health insurance even if they aren't asking for it, a point Clinton nodded to when she said Medicare, the health program for the elderly, works in part because "everybody is required to be in."
Experts agree that Sen. Obama's plan leaves 15 million people without health insurance. It's telling that misrepresenting The Washington Post, which also has editorialized that Sen. Obama's plan would leave at least 15 million without coverage, is the best the Obama campaign can do to support their position.
The mailer also claims that Hillary previously praised Sen. Obama's plan. Actually, Hillary has noted, since the day Sen. Obama announced his plan, that it would fail to cover every American. From The New York Times:
Rival Democrats, recognizing the stakes on this signature issue, responded quickly, arguing that because Mr. Obama would not require every American to have insurance, it is not a true universal health plan. Neera Tanden, policy director for Mrs. Clinton — who had earlier delivered an economic policy speech to compete with Mr. Obama’s — welcomed Mr. Obama to the health care debate. Ms. Tanden added, "Senator Clinton believes that in addition to making healthcare more accessible, we have to achieve true universal health care so that every American has health care coverage."
The Obama campaign is pointing to the following remark from an August 4 debate to argue that Hillary "praised" Sen. Obama's health care plan: "We are all in favor of universal health care." Hillary still believes that all the Democrats want universal health care. Sen. Obama has just introduced a plan that leaves 15 million people out.
The mailer also says that "experts" agree with Sen. Obama. But it doesn't cite a single health care expert. Why? Health care experts agree with Hillary—without a mandate millions are left out.
SOURCES:
http://www.cnn.com/...
http://thepage.time.com/...
http://facts.hillaryhub.com/...